| |
I won’t be home until late. I met up with a friend. Don’t wait up, okay?
Gracen checked her text to Delaney for a reply only to find it hadn’t even been seen by her friend yet. She’d heard the familiar rumble of Delaney’s Jeep across the river—probably pulling into the Haus—but she hadn’t been able to see beyond the alleyway of the pizzeria to confirm. Not that it made a big difference.
Delaney would figure it out soon enough.
“Is someone interesting telling you something on that thing?”
The confusing question drew Gracen’s gaze across the now-closed hood of the mustang where Malachi had set up the greasy pizza box between them like a make-shift table. She pulled the stool to one side, and he produced another that appeared to be the same from the back of the dirt-floor garage.
The bottles of beer—dripping with condensation—clinked together when he sat them in the middle of the opened pizza box. Maybe she should be grateful that he cleaned up and put on a shirt when he brought the pizza out, but that wasn’t what she felt about it. It was hard to ignore the way the lack of grease smudges on his jaw and under his chin and his hair slicked back made his features more angular, though.
Even his gaze changed as he eyed her across the sanded hood, ignoring everything in between them to search for something in her.
A lie, maybe?
Gracen had news for him. “I was trying to let my roommate know I might be late.”
That perked his interest enough to tilt his strong jaw upward. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” Gracen used the stool’s bottom rungs and the hood as the place to support her hand as she leaned over the grab a bottle of beer with a familiar red and gold label, the caps on top emblazoned with a crown. “Bud’s my favorite.”
She used the sleeve of her sweater to get a decent grip on the cap without hurting her palm to twist it off. The satisfying hiss of the freshly opened beer left her tastebuds tingling as if she could already taste the cold hops. “I had to fight my friend to get it in the fridge. His mother might find it. We compromised. I keep the hard liquor in the freezer and grab the beer two or three at a time from Checkered’s if I want some. They’re charging seven dollars a bottle, which should be a damned crime, but it is what it is.”
Huh.
“Is he not of legal age or—”
“Twenty-five,” Malachi interjected as he reached for the other beer currently leaving a wet ring on the pizza box’s overturned cover. “Which is only a couple of years younger than me, but you couldn’t tell. It’s like he never got out of his teens half of the time.”
“And he can’t drink?”
That didn’t seem right to Gracen.
Or rather, nothing about it sounded right.
“Socially.” Malachi wet his lips after cracking open his own beer, and then he tipped it up for a drink that downed at least a quarter of the bottle. Smacking his satisfaction at the taste, he eyed the bottle and told her, “Within his circle.”
Gracen’s gaze narrowed at what Malachi implied; she’d heard that same nonsense somewhere else before. “Is he Pen—”
Malachi’s gaze cut to Gracen, and she didn’t even finish the question. The way he lifted one shoulder and subtly nodded before grabbing one of the three remaining slices of pizza answered her question without him needing to. He filled his mouth with a bite of cheesy pepperoni, but Gracen didn’t move to do the same.
Even if the pizza looked good.
Or maybe that was just Malachi eating it.
Needing to get her mind—and attention—off the way the man across the way chewed his food, because it really shouldn’t be that interesting, Gracen took her first sip of beer. The crisp liquor and familiar taste of hops washed down some of her nerves.
Maybe that was why she asked next, “Are you?”
The beer and its chilly contents seemed like a better thing to focus on after she asked it, though.
Gracen thought she already had the answer to her question if she added up a few facts—none of the church’s congregation would be caught dead outside shirtless. Even the men wore button downs folded up to the elbows when they worked in the nearby wood mills in the mid-summer when the temperature was the hottest. That was before she even factored in the beer, or how he’d easily invited her over; things he probably wouldn’t be allowed to do if he followed the church’s rules for its followers. Dating outside of their congregation was forbidden which was what made the upcoming wedding so curious to Gracen.
Well, other than the fact it also involved her ex.
She didn’t finish the question because she thought leaving it open-ended allowed Malachi to refuse to answer, if he wanted.
Instead, he only barked out a laugh.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “That’s the whole damn problem.”
“What problem?”
Instantly, Malachi quieted as he tossed what remained of his pizza slice to the box. While he chugged his beer and avoided Gracen’s gaze, she opted to give him an easy way out.
“You don’t need to tell me,” she said, and then took another sip of beer.
He plonked his bottle down to the hood.
Not even on the pizza box that time.
“Good,” he said roughly in a beer-induced sigh. “No offence, but I’m not really interested in getting into all of that tonight. And hell, it’s a little heavy, for a chick I didn’t even get on the back of my bike yet.”
Gracen’s brow jumped high. “You think you could get me on your bike?”
Across the hood, Malachi practically rolled off the stool with his laughter. “That’s not really what I meant—I need another beer.”
He retreated into the apartment, his laughter still echoing around Gracen while she tried to figure out if he had insulted her or not. Or rather, if he meant for his comment to be insulting. Since she decided she wasn’t that offended—and there was no way in hell he could get her on the back of his bike, anyway, not that he knew as much—Gracen shrugged it off and reached for her first slice of leftover pizza.
Cold, but still delicious, she worked away at the slice until Malachi returned with a fresh bottle of beer. He finished off the one bottle, setting it inside a cooler next to the car with other empties, before cracking open the new one.
“I hope the one you’ve got is enough,” he said, nodding toward her beer on the pizza box. “Checkered’s closed five minutes ago.”
Gracen glanced down the darkened alley thought the spattering of raindrops that had started to fall since her arrival. For the most part, summer showers did little but add a dampness and earthy smell to the air. Like worms, she used to say when she was a girl.
The air in the rain smelled like worms.
“This one’s good,” she replied.
“Gotcha,” he muttered back. “Well, I guess you only have to walk home, right?”
She smiled at that. “It’s not even that far.”
He squinted one eye her way, making her grin grow wider at his playful expression. “I’ll still have to walk you home.”
“Oh? That so?”
“I never asked if you were scared of the dark, so ...”
“And if I wasn’t?” she asked.
Malachi lifted one shoulder like that didn’t matter. “Like I said, I never asked.”
Smartass.
But she liked it.
The two finished off the remaining pizza in the box and sipped their beers in silence. Not that the quiet stillness between them bothered Gracen. It was comfortable, really. Strangely easy, even, for two people who barely knew one another. Eventually, the silence did melt into quiet conversation about safe topics. The weather; even the town again. Malachi’s failed attempt to join the Canadian Armed Forces, which he shrugged off by saying, “I still wasn’t that great with authority.”
Not that she could get his current job out of him. Or anything else too personal that might give her a look at the man behind the name and intense blue eyes. He could talk her ear off, if she kept him going, but was careful every time he was the center of attention in the conversation.
She just couldn’t figure out why.
What was there to hide?
Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long. Before she could finish her beer, and as Malachi cleared the pizza box into the green trash can everyone in town was required to use, the shower piddled out to practically nothing.
Gracen gulped in a deep swallow of air, saying, “It still smells like worms.”
Malachi’s chuckles echoed in the garage as he rounded the front of the blocked-up car to grab the empty beer bottle she held out for him. “What?”
“Don’t you think it smells like worms when it rains in the summer?”
He grabbed the bottle with two fingers hooking around hers, but she didn’t let go right away.
“I’ve never heard of that before,” he admitted.
Oh.
“Maybe it’s just me,” she said under her breath.
“It’s a good description, actually.”
Gracen finally released the amber bottle to Malachi’s hold, but he didn’t loosen his fingers around hers to let her pull away. “Were you kidding about the bike thing?”
“Partly.”
“That’s kind of rude. You shouldn’t tell someone you only want to get them on the back of your bike.”
“Should I lie?” he asked back.
Gracen didn’t know what to say to that.
Malachi wasn’t bothered, continuing with, “I’m not in town for long, and I don’t plan to stick around longer than I’ve already agreed to.” Not that he offered anything in regard to the who of that arrangement. Who did he owe anything, including a timeline of his presence in town, to—the friend renting the pizzeria’s apartment? Unfortunately, she couldn’t name all of her neighbors. Malachi didn’t give Gracen the chance to ask. “I’m not here looking for anything or anyone serious. Don’t take that to heart; you’re gorgeous, decent conversation, and I don’t know how you’re single. It’s a shame. You seem like a great girl for the right guy, but please don’t think you’re looking at him when you stare at me.”
Could bluntness be a valued trait?
“You never asked me if I was single, actually,” Gracen said, keeping the nerves out of her voice.
At that, he smirked. “Or I didn’t care. Maybe you were something interesting to distract myself with when presented with the chance while I’m in this little shithole people around here call home. I’m just trying to be up front about my intentions. You deserve that.”
And he was honest, clearly.
Gracen appreciated it.
“Total transparency?” she offered back.
Malachi let her fingers go from his grip and wasted no time turning away to get rid of the bottle as he said, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’ve already told you—I didn’t ask.”
Right.
She would try to remember that.
“Either way,” Gracen said, not wanting to be the only one between them who didn’t make things clear, “nothing serious works for me right now, too. I’m not over my ex, so how about I don’t pretend like I’m not also here with you for a reason.”
Gracen had no reason to tell Malachi about Sonny—not that she had any intention of mentioning his name. It just seemed unfair to engage in any flirting or otherwise with someone if a hundred percent of her wasn’t entirely in it to begin with.
Malachi frowned, leaning over the hood of the car and tapping a beat to the matte metal finish with his index finger. “A recent thing?”
Good God.
The shame settled deep.
Gracen blew out a stressed breath. “Not as recent as I would like.”
“Ah, well, there’s that,” he said, slapping his hand to the hood of the car as he straightened up and glanced back at his bike parked in the alley. “I suppose I really can’t get you out on it now unless I wipe all the water off, huh? I do have a second helmet I can use as long as it makes its way back.”
“Ah, no. Not even if it was dry.”
“Seriously?” he asked, swinging back her way with a cocked eyebrow.
“My mom and dad died in a car crash when I was in middle school. It took me a year to even get on the highway again as a passenger. I got my driver’s license late, and only because I didn’t have a choice. I needed to drive.”
Malachi’s easy expression melted away to sadness. “I’m—”
“Sorry, yeah. Most people say that. Anyway,” Gracen said under her breath, wanting to get beyond the pity side of the conversation when someone learned how she’d been left parentless as a preteen. “I’m mostly okay driving now, but I am not getting on that death trap. All I can see is me and pavement, and not one thing in between. I won’t die like that, bleeding on pavement.”
He blinked, speechless.
Gracen only shrugged. “Sorry, that was heavy, huh?”
“I really thought I was gonna be the one to put something like that out there,” he said, putting a fisted hand to his mouth and clearing his throat. “No bike, got it.”
As long as she didn’t have to say it again.
“Everything else is probably good, though,” she told him.
Maybe that could put the two of them back on track.
Her flippant comment gained all of the man’s attention.
“Anything?” he clarified, tone dipping and his grin sexy.
Even cleaned up and clothed, Malachi was hard to resist.
Gracen never did this.
Had not ever done it.
“I’ve never had a one-night stand,” she whispered, cheeks burning pink as he inched closer to her with every word she spoke.
“If I’m gonna be in town, it doesn’t even have to be once,” Malachi returned without flinching.
Gracen laughed out what remained of her anxiety when he grinned salaciously. He had no shame, “I take it, you’ve done this before?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
“Yeah, probably not,” she agreed.
He stood straight in front of where the car’s headlights might someday be if the job was ever finished. Malachi had to be at least six feet, if not topping it. Just one more thing to make him attractive to Gracen. As a girl who stood five-foot-ten-inches without heels, she’d usually towered over guys for most of high school, if not looked them eye to eye.
She wanted to look up.
Be held.
Consumed.
The very same way Malachi was currently eyeing her tiny yoga shorts. He truly had been a gentleman earlier—she’d not caught him looking at her ass even once.
“Is the guy who rents the apartment coming home? You’re not really roommates, right?”
Malachi shook his head. “Straight night shifts at the mill in Juniper for the month. He does four days on, three off, and they pay his lodging.”
Perfect.
“Only shitty thing about it,” he started.
“Is what?” she questioned.
“All I’ve got is the couch.”
“Lucky for you,” Gracen quipped with a wink as she pointed toward the inside rear of the car, “I was kind of interested in that bench seat back there.”
It was the only thing inside the shell of the car, and since she’d checked it out earlier and determined it was in decent condition, she had zero interest in seeing the inside of an apartment that wasn’t even Malachi’s.
His head bobbed appreciatively while his gaze darted between her and the car. “You’re not fucking with me here?”
“We’re both adults here. We can have fun.”
His lips stretched wide to show straight, white teeth. “Yes, we sure can.”
It didn’t have to mean a thing, and Gracen wouldn’t feel badly about any of it, either.
“Is kissing good, or nah?” he asked, finally stepping close enough that his hands came to rest on her bare knees. It was that moment, the second the soft heat of his skin touched hers, that she stopped trembling. Gracen hadn’t felt the shivers until that moment.
“You’re not cold,” he noted.
“Can’t say I’m nervous, either,” she replied truthfully.
The butterflies beating in her belly did all the work there. No, what was left came from somewhere else.
Excitement, maybe.
Not that anticipation could fully describe the pit of need pooling deep and widening her thighs with the help of the gentlest push from Malachi’s fingers. In the face of her silent willingness, he stepped in between her open legs, asking, “I’m gonna need to know if we’re doing the kissing thing or not, Gracen.”
It was almost impossible to tell him no when all she needed to do was tip her head up when he leaned down.
“If you close the garage door first,” she managed to say with her tone pitched slightly higher. He made it hard to breathe this close, even if the last thing she wanted him to do was leave. The garage had a sliding door to shut, not that she’d ever seen it closed more than a quarter of the way down before. There was always time for a first.
Malachi only whistled while he studied her.
It felt different now.
How did the saying go?
Ah, yeah. Gracen remembered. The best way to get over someone was getting under someone else.
“Kiss first,” Malachi offered like he was bargaining her request, “then the door, and we go from there, hmm?”
Gracen could work with that. “Okay, kiss—”
She didn’t get the first part out.
His mouth was hungry when it found hers. His kiss, rough enough to make her breathless. She’d forgotten what that was like, and how much she enjoyed it. She tasted the remnants of his beer on the tip of his tongue while it tangled with hers. Her thighs tightened to his legs to keep him close while one of his large hands rested across her collarbones while his pointer finger pressed under her chin to keep her mouth available to his demanding kiss.
It was funny that Malachi had said she was something interesting to distract himself with when everything about her life seemed as boring as the town she had never been able to leave. In fact, he was the most interesting thing to have walked in it lately.
Not that he needed to know as much.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” she breathed against his slower pecks and playful nips to her lips that were hard to resist responding with her own. Gracen hadn’t forgotten the deal. Slapping her palms to his chest, she pushed Malachi back a step. His groan and those heavy-lidded blue eyes of his locking in on her didn’t stop Gracen from pointing over his shoulder to say weakly, “Door next.”
She needed to maintain some dignity even if he made her want to question her own self-respect and boundaries at that very moment. He’d have to deal with it; Gracen unfortunately was.
